


Push and Pull

by exbex



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-10
Updated: 2010-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 00:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The quotes are from the episode "Red, White, or Blue."</p>
    </blockquote>





	Push and Pull

**Author's Note:**

> The quotes are from the episode "Red, White, or Blue."

Fraser...

"You cover everything up, you squash it down."

If only he knew. It infuriates him, I know, but what would he do if I revealed the feelings I have for him, if I acted on them?

It was Ray reaching out, his invitation to friendship after I had lost my way, after my very belief in my father's goodness had been shaken, after I had been effectively ostracized by my own country, that had relieved me but also made me realize my own loneliness.

"Are you human? Because if you are, human beings feel things. They feel anger, they feel love and lust and fear."

I love him. He'll never know it, perhaps, but I love him. I love his fierceness and the vulnerability that he doesn't show.

I think it was the night he went after Frank Zuko that I realized that I loved him. I felt relief course through me when he got back into the car. He told me how terrified he was, but I just handed him his gun and feigned disapproval instead of reaching for him. I am afraid, afraid that if I tell him how I feel, if I try to have him, I'll clasp him too tightly and he'll slip through my fingers like grains of sand.

I am human in how weak I am, and the anger I feel sometimes, anger toward my father, anger toward those who killed him, anger toward those who do wrong, makes me feel weak. Lust is a feeling that has always resulted in pain, but the longer I know Ray, the more I let it in. When the day is over and I dare allow myself to fantasize, I think about him, imagine myself wrapping my fingers around his tie and pulling him in for a kiss, or of taking the cross that he wears into my mouth, of unbuttoning his shirt, running my hands over his scalp or through his chest hair.

Oh dear.

Ray...

　

"I envy you Ray. You have a kind of freedom I wish I had, a sort of existential honesty."

　

That is a joke. If I were as honest as Fraser thought I was, I wouldn't have been standing next to him in that courtroom, thinking about how I was going to die without ever having told him how I felt. Freedom? That is even funnier. I haven't had an ounce of freedom in my life since Fraser walked into it. The addition of Benton Fraser has upped my guilt quotient, and definitely increased the amount of danger. Before Benny, there was only as much guilt as any other semi-lapsed Catholic, and about as much danger as a Chicago cop can expect. Okay, so that's quite a bit of guilt and danger, but Benny just exacerbates it all, always needling without knowing it, always pushing. He looks at me out of those wide blue eyes, with that aren't you going to stop that car for speeding look, and the yellow lights mean slow down, Ray, not speed through the intersection before the light turns red, and of course we have to hold the door open for every single person exiting or entering the building.

I will not even get started on the Metcalf case. Of course I hit Fraser on purpose. I'm not that lousy of a shot. I wanted to shoot her so bad, but that would have been worse, somehow. Fraser could forgive me for shooting him, but shooting her, no way.

Back in the Days of Sanity, also known as the B.F. (before Fraser) era, I would take my two weeks vacation every year, go to Florida, stick my toes in the sand and bask in the sunlight. I gave that up this past year to go build a cabin in the middle of the nowhere Canada with Fraser. Of course this was Benny, so our plane gets hi-jacked and I have to carry him through the woods.

Turns out I would give up ten vacations in Florida and do it again (well, maybe minus the escaped convict part).

"He dresses up in that damn red suit every day like it's some kind of signpost."

I hate that Look At Me, I'm Superman Flag he wears. It's ridiculous; stupid pants and boots and that lanyard he's always asking if it's straight. The brown one is at least tolerable; normal pants and subtle jacket, and normal button-down shirt with nice, respectable tie that I wouldn't mind straightening, or maybe loosening a little, pulling on it so I can kiss him....

Ah, shit.

Fraser...

　

"After all that we've been through, haven't you learned anything?"

　

Now that Ray is speaking to me once again, and now that things have calmed down considerably, it seems that this is an opportune time to reveal how I feel. It's possible, probable even, that Ray will not react as I have hoped. But Ray is my friend, and I trust him. As it is inevitable that we will find ourselves in a dangerous situation again soon, (this seems to be the nature of our partnership and our lives here in Chicago), I don't want to go another day with my lack of honesty.

I'm staring at him, as he pulls up in front of my apartment building. My heart is racing as I reach out, and his eyes widen in surprise as I touch his face. Before I know it, I have my fingers wrapped around his tie, and I've pulled him in for a kiss. It takes a moment for my mind to register several rather serendipitous realities, among them that Ray is not pushing me away, as I feared, but he's kissing me back, without an ounce of reservation, and, in fact, he has the fingers of one hand in my hair, which is making it very difficult to concentrate, while the fingers of his other hand are, interestingly enough, wrapped around my own tie, pulling me closer.

Ray....

I'm about to drop him off in front of his apartment like I do almost every day, and suddenly he reaches out and just touches my face, and before I know it we're both pulling on each other and kissing like a couple of crazy teenagers, in front of God and anybody else in broad daylight, and I don't even care.

"Ray."

"What, Benny?"

"As my heart rate seems to have increased, I thought I'd point out that we are rather fortunate not be attached to a bomb at this point."

"I don't know Benny, I thought my head was going to explode there for a while."

"Ah. Ray?"

"Yeah Benny?"

"I think it would be wise for us to burn off some of this excess energy we seem to be experiencing, thereby returning us to our normal resting heart rate."

"You got anything in mind, Benny?"

"Well, Ray, normally I would suggest a rigorous form of exercise."

"Rigorous exercise huh?"

"Well, some forms are more enjoyable than others, Ray."

"Mmm, can't argue with you there."

"Ah, Ray, perhaps we should lessen our risk of breaking city ordinances with public acts that should instead be done in private."

　

Fraser....

Ray is running his hands over my bare skin with a reverence I have only seen him use on fine Italian suits, but a gentleness I have managed to glimpse several times in his interactions with others. I reached up and let my fingers rest idly on his cross, then I put both hands on his shoulders and pull, gently insisting that he meet me, bringing our bodies together.

Ray...

Fraser is all hands, as it turns out. He's pulling me down, all bossy like he usually is. I can't really complain though, as he's rubbing his hands down my back to cup my ass. I have to shake my head; here he is, looking like some sculpture, all Greek-god like, and he wants my skinny, bald, big-nosed self. Hell, he seems to like it, even, because now he's running his hands over my bald head like some kid with his hands in the candy dish. But then he stops, like the crazy, infuriating bastard that he is.

"Benny, what the hell?"

"Ray, I'm sorry...I wish...if I had said something sooner, maybe I wouldn't have.."

I get it. He's talking about her, Victoria. The fact is, it's taken more than one ridiculously near-death moment for us to finally get to this point, so, we're both idiots, but it's okay, because I'm naked with a guy, (kind of surprising, that one) and I'm not even caring that my suit is getting half-wolf hair and God-knows-what-else from Fraser's apartment floor on it (not caring much anyhow), because nothing really matters except right now.

"Benny, it's okay. Don't worry about it, none of that matters anymore."

He looks like he's going to argue for a minute, but then he just gets that smile, that slow, kind of shy but warm smile that is almost never there, and then everything is exactly like it should be.

Dief...

Humans. I will never understand them. I've been telling both of them for I don't know how long that they should just tell each other. All I get is "Diefenbaker, there are some things that you can simply not comprehend with this particular situation," and "I don't need advice from some deaf half-wolf!" Of course, if they could have just smelled how much they wanted to mate with each other, they wouldn't have to go through all of this. And they think they're high on the evolutionary chain. All's well that ends well I guess. I'm gonna go find some donuts.


End file.
